My Thought parlour

Travel to unravel

Yes! This blog is my few experiences, thoughts on the stint with train. Indian railways.

Going by the title of a Hindi movie: ‘The burning train’, I have come across many friends who had a burning desire to experience a train journey once in their life. Not for the fact that they couldn’t afford but for the reason that their region had no access to train transport.

Ticking my brain cells, I can remember my first train journey in an awful state with fractured hand on a Diwali night and travelling to a hospital in a nearby city by train. Since then my most of journeys have been by train. It has become habitual for me to prefer train over bus. Flight is not my type! Itna paisa mein itna hi milega 😛

My conscience tells me that I enjoy it being for the reason that the fare is cheaper than bus transport or for the reason that the 6 ft 2” body can easily fit therein.

Hours after an online war with “irctc.com” to book a seat or standing in the long Q at reservation counter in the early morning or calling a booking agent and overpaying him, if at all a seat is booked then “You’re a winner”. Raise a toast. At least you feel to do so. If you haven’t experienced, google ‘irctc trolls’ to have a laugh burst.

Though booking is a pain, what makes train journey so special? It can be a sleeper seat, cool breeze through the windows chilling you, different people with different cultures or a moving toilet?? 😛 It is the passengers. Noticed or not, we get to see travelers enroute to Vaishno Devi singing bhajans and playing ‘dafli’, students going for a sports meet, a group of relatives & friends playing a game of cards and sharing their home made snacks. And there’s another set of people i.e., daily passengers. They amuse me for their network of friends they have. More than on my Facebook! They have endless topics to speak on and debate during their journey. The vegetable market comes to them at few village stations and lady travelers clean it there itself. ‘Time management’. Few might do family plan as well. Some journeys are just like fairytales to tell.

And travelling by the country side, children waving to passengers have always enthralled me and have brought smile. A wave back at them, they jump off their feet. ‘Expressionless moments’ they are.

Without these trains Indian cinema would have been incomplete and we could have missed great actions and dance steps. So many action sequences shot on them, so many songs choreographed on them, so many love stories blossoming in them! The most successful ran movies like Sholay and DDLJ have train journey as their USP.

The best part of these journeys is that you get to see a lot of teens (Select your opposite sex :P) and another is that unlike in bus stands no one comes to ask you “Where is this train heading?”/”Kya yeh Dilli jaayega?”

A big salute to Indian railways for giving such wonderful memories to carry on and for being employer for 1.3 million Indians. The world’s largest network of transportation and ninth largest commercial or utility employer. It even gifted us ‘Captain COOL’ of Indian cricket team, M.S. Dhoni.